Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (31 page)

David said he would consider that a good bargain if they could have twenty-five percent of anything we get while hunting and fishing. He also wants to be able to count on us to help if they're ever attacked. They say they don't have a gun on the place but David has several fencing swords. "O
h, swell," I thought to myself.

Mick and Dav
id shook hands. Toni left the basket on our coffee table and they headed back home. I yelled for Carisa and Merry to get out there and start cleaning up the living room.

Mick sent Jason and Jeremy to the Masterson place after breakfast
. I hope we get those propane tanks. See ya later.

2:00 PM...

We're having seriously cold weather. The thermometer on the back porch says its twenty degrees outside. I'll bet tonight will be in the low teens.

Jason and Jeremy split enough wood to last the Masterson's several days. Jeremy said that Rebecca came outside while they were working to bring them fancy little cookies on a white platter.

He said the cookies were bland but he ate them anyway so he wouldn't hurt Rebecca's feelings because she's "really nice." Uh huh, I'll bet you're thinkin' what I'm thinkin'.

They couldn't fix the propane grill,
so they came home with four 20 lb propane canisters.

I'm glad the Masterson's will be warm tonight, and I'm glad that we now have a couple tanks of propane to save for Clinic Diane.

Elaine's in charge of supper tonight. I have no idea what she has planned but I'm sure it'll be good. That woman is an amazing cook and Nana's enjoying teaching and learning from her.

I'm headed out to put more straw down for the goats. We should be getting babies from our last pregnant doe soon. I'd hate for them to be born in this cold weather.

9:00 PM...

Mick and the crew stopped work on the fence early this afternoon. It's so cold that they could barely feel their hands and feet. Mr. Hobbs had an icicle hanging from the tip of his nose (yuck).

The fire isn't keeping the living room as warm as it usually does. I'm sure Carisa and Merry will be sleeping on the sofa bed again tonight. I might crawl in there with 'em.

Elaine made venison pot pie for supper. It was amazing! There was a wonderful thick gravy with meat and veggies inside.

The men loved it and said they could have eaten more. The kids loved it too, even though "Bambi" was in there. The kids have learned that they'll have to eat what's put in front of them or go hungry. I heard no complaints from Carisa or Merry. They were too busy stuffing their faces.

Nana used re-hydrated banana chips and made a couple loafs of banana bread to go with the pot pie, and we were all feeling fat and lazy.

I just thought about Hisa, Soo, and Valerie. I hope they'll be warm enough in Clinic Diane. I know Hisa and Soo have enough sense to drag Valerie here or Marisa's house if they get too cold.

This day draws to a close but I'm not sleepy yet. I think I'll take a book out to Mick's recliner and read by firelight for a while.

Bye for now.

Sunday, February 16

I had a surprise when I woke up this morning. Soo was in the
recliner
and Valerie and Hisa were on a pallet on the floor. They
were all sound asleep.

Valerie woke when I lit the stove and started water for coffee. She pretended she was still asleep and stayed right up close to Hisa.
Moms know. I'm tellin' ya, we know when you're only pretending to sleep.

We have three eggs this morning. Yahoo! Now we can start saving for that fried egg breakfast I've been craving. Have I ever told you that
I love those chickens?

Laundry's backing up again. We need to get it done today but
its currently twelve degrees outside. The laundry will have to wait 'til it's at least thirty-five degrees out there. My hands can't take it when it's colder than that.

Pop took about half the potatoes we got from the restaurant haul to use as seed potatoes. Nana's making hash browns and frying the last of the eatin' potatoes as I type. We'll have them with jelly, butter, honey, ketchup, or whatever else we have available. She says the carbohydrates will be good for our skinny men folk, and there will be enough for e
veryone to have seconds.

I just heard wild animals come in the door, so I'm off to help
Nana get 'em fed. See ya later.

2:45 PM...

Surprise! Valerie came over for lunch! I think she's really getting better. She's actually responding with more than one word now. She's sitting at the table with Carisa and Merry, watching them play rummy. I told Carisa not to push her, just let her get comfortable being around people again.

Hisa's running ar
ound the kitchen, helping us clean. I think she's happy to be away from Clinic Diane for a while. Nana, Hisa, and Elaine are trying to work out a schedule for cooking duty. We have enough people who can cook and there's no reason why one person should have to be involved with every meal, every day.

Elaine says she'd like to have responsibility for at least one meal a day, preferably two. She says she feels like it's her only way to contribute to our survival and she kn
ows she's good at it.

I told them to add Carisa and Merry into the schedule. They're good helpers and can learn fast. They need to learn how to cook. We might have to
count on them for it someday.

We all thought the men should cook at least one day a week until Mick said he'd be happy to trade working on the fence for a day working in the kitchen, and he knows "the women would do a great job gettin' that fence up." I don't think so. Fence work is not for me. I'm stayin' in the kitchen, close to the warm
cookstove. Yep, I'm spoiled.

Mick's asleep in the
recliner
, of course. There's a notepad and pen about to fall off his lap and Tig is asleep between his ankles. Opie went back to Marisa'
s house with her and the kids.

Pop's going in and out of the house to check on his seedlings. He's worried about them freezing in this unusually cold weather. He comes in when he gets cold and hea
ds back out when he gets warm.

Jeremy and Jason are trying to finish boarding the windows and get the kitchen ready for
cabinets
at Jason and Marisa's house.

Marisa told Jason she wants to get paint from Lowe's. She wants a pretty kitchen, even if it will be semi-modern, semi-pioneer. He promised her he would get paint, of course.

There's smoke coming from the Masterson's ch
imney and that makes me happy.

I think I'll head out to nap on the couch unless my name's on the duty list for supper today. If it is, I'll have to figure out what to make and get s
tarted gathering everything up.

10:45 PM...

Valerie was back fo
r supper tonight, in fact, she'll stay the night if Hisa will stay as well. Hisa agreed and made a pallet on the floor. Soo said he turned off the propane at Clinic Diane so it won't be wasted. He'll be sleeping in the recliner tonight and has fire duty. We have to keep the fire going so we don't freeze to death!

Carisa and Merry will be sleeping on a pallet in the floor at Marisa's house so Nana and Pop can turn off their propane and sleep on our
sofa bed
. The livin
g room will be packed tonight.

Jeremy's sleeping at the Hobbs place. He says the fire is just as warm at the Hobbs place as it is at Marisa's place. I'll bet he likes the fact that he'll be closer to Rebecca, even if
they are in different houses.

That's all I have for you tonight
.

Bye for now.

Monday
, February 17

We have three eggs again today! It's nineteen degrees outside and we have nothing to do other than cook, eat, and count eggs. Jason says he'll need to split wood this afternoon. Mick told him we'd put the chopping block in the garage so he'd be out of the wind.

Carisa, Merry, and Valerie are sitting on pallets in front of the fire. Carisa asked Valerie if she wanted to learn how to play rummy and she nodded her head. They're being really gentle with her. Carisa thinks that Valerie has played rummy before but can't remember exactly how. They plan to pull out the Monopoly game tonight. I hate Monopoly, so I won't be playing.

Mick's going crazy because he can't work on the fence. He plans to head back to Lowe's and see what else he can find there. He says he might even loot a house or two. Jason and Jeremy are all over th
at idea and plan to go with him. They'll take Mr. Hobbs' Silverado because it has an extended cab. They’ll hitch up the flatbed trailer in case they need to bring home something big.

Mr. Hobbs said it was okay with him but he'll skip this run. He's coming down with a cold and doesn't feel well. Hisa gave him some cold medicine and sent him home to rest. If I were Mr. Hobbs, I wouldn't want to go back to Lowe's either.

Mick said the gas tanker is still about forty percent full but he wants to loot any vehicle he can find for gasoline every time we go out. He'll take all our empty gas cans with him today.

Marisa and Elaine have breakfast duty, so I came in here to get some peace and type on this computer. They'll holler for me when the food's ready.

I think I'll look through my recipe files while I'm in here. Maybe I can find something wonderful to make since I have supper duty tonight. See ya later.

3:00 PM...

Excitement!

We have a long, tall, Texan in Clinic Diane. Mick found him
lying in the seat of a pick-up truck he was trying to loot for gas. Hisa can't find any wounds on him, and says he's suffering from severe hypothermia.

He's in and out of consciousness and Hisa's trying to get his body temperature up. We know he's from Texas because of the plates on the truck and the driver's license in his wallet.

His name is Dane Brock, and he is a big guy. His driver’s license says he's 6'7" and weighs 275 lbs. He's thirty-five years old and from Laredo, Texas.

He looks like he's lost a good amount of weight because his clothes are hanging loose on him. He was wearing a jacket lined with sheepskin and a pair of big ol' cowboy boots. He comes with two shotguns, a rifle, a pistol, and a wooden baseball bat. He also has quite a bit of ammo to go with his
guns.

Dane’s
the owner of some type of "gas and oil" company. There's a business card in his wallet that says "Brock Gas & Oil, Inc." His name is listed as "Proprietor and CEO." I wonder if he owns one of those big ol' Texas oil wells.

Hisa has the heat on at Clinic Diane and has covered him with several blankets. She has him hooked up to an IV and is giving him a bag of the fluids we got at Walgreens. She says the warm fluids should help him quite a bit.

Mick and Soo are at Clinic Diane, waiting for our Texan to regain consciousness so we can find out if he's a good guy, or a bad guy.

Valerie’s here with the girls.
I'm really happy that she's staying here without Hisa. I think she's getting attached to Carisa and Merry.

I don't think we can go a day without some kind of excitement around here.

Mick says there are a lot of HDI's in town, but they’re moving at a snail’s pace. Those without legs or lower parts of their bodies are frozen to the streets and sidewalks wherever water had pooled. They're ripping themselves apart trying to get loose. I'm freaked out that he saw so many.

I'm on supper duty, so I need to get out there and get started. I'll write later and tell you any more information we find out about Mr. Dane Brock. See Ya!

11:00 PM...

We had baked macaroni and cheese casserole with chunks of ham mixed in for supper. I took a bag of shredded cheddar from the freezer and sprinkled it on top to melt in the oven. We had green beans on the side.

Nana opened a large can of pear halves, put a teaspoon of Miracle Whip in the center of each, and sprinkled cheddar cheese on top. I love pears served that way. We've always called it "pear salad." The kids think I'm the most wonderful Gramma in the world for making mac 'n cheese for supper.

Dane is coming around. He's been conscious enough to answer quite a few questions. It looks like he's gonna be in the "good guy" category.

We learned that he was headed back to Texas after returning his nine year old daughter to his ex-wife in Georgia.

His ex-wife had refused to allow his daughter, Jemma, to fly to Texas alone, so Dane ended up driving to Georgia to
pick up Jemma, and driving her back after Christmas. The world was falling apart and Dane decided to stay near his daughter for a few extra days.

To make a long story short, Jemma was bitten by an HDI at a bus stop in Atlanta. She became infected and then
, bit her mother.

Mot
her and daughter were both shot when they were roaming the streets, looking for their next victim.